Pushing the limits of self

Grandmother of 3 fulfills wish by getting Muhlenberg degree.

The line of people congratulating Betty Richardson on receiving her bachelor's degree Saturday was long.

There were her husband, Glen, her children and her grandchildren.

Richardson, 54, of Plainfield, N.J., is one of 52 students who participated in commencement at the Wescoe School, Muhlenberg College's center for older, nontraditional students. They were part of the school's 22-month accelerated program that offers degrees in business administration, human resource management and information systems.

Richardson, chosen from among her classmates to speak at the ceremony, was one of 35 students to receive degrees. The others who attended will be given degrees after fulfilling outstanding requirements, school officials said.

"It was tough, it wasn't easy," said Glen Richardson as he watched his wife greet family members and fellow students outside the college's Egner Memorial Chapel in Allentown moments after the ceremony ended.

"But thank God for God being God, because I have also learned by her learning," he said.

Nontraditional students -- described as those 25 and older -- accounted for 38 percent of the nation's college students in 1999, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Muhlenberg, which has operated an adult education school since 1910, launched its accelerated program in 1995, said Molly Brown, marketing director for the Wescoe School. The program crams a semester's worth of material into five weeks, she said.

Students must have some college or professional experience when they start, said Brown, observing that she has found that nontraditional students "appreciate the second chance and they tend to take the experience more seriously." Their average age is 38.

Richardson is a mother of two and grandmother of three. Previously a human resources manager for Lucent Technologies, she opened Global Healing, a health systems consulting firm, last year with three former colleagues.

The program has allowed her to expand her already extensive knowledge of the human resources field, she said.

"Sometimes you have to be able to push against what you know to be able to do more things," said Richardson.

Richardson was part of a team of six human-resources degree candidates based in Easton, said Wescoe Dean James Brennan, who explained the program emphasizes the importance of teamwork.

Because of "issues of style" created by differences in race, background and gender, the members of Richardson's team were often contentious with one another, he recalled.

One of the group's three African-Americans and one of its five women, Richardson was not the peacemaker -- the lone man on the group was -- but she was frequently able to turn the contentiousness into something positive, Brennan recalled.

"She has the ability to turn herself around emotionally and intellectually when there's a setback and make something positive out of it," Brennan said.

Glen Richardson said his wife wanted to go to college when they were younger but abandoned those plans to marry and raise a family.

When she returned to school, the family helped with the cooking, housekeeping and other chores, he said.

"Even our grandchildren, they always made sure things were done," he said.

Betty Richardson said she now wants to work on getting her master's degree.